Cal Poly to Host Alumni Event at MD&M West

California State Polytechnic University (Cal Poly) Pomona will be hosting a reception for members of its Engineering Alumni Association at MD&M West 2013. The event which will feature alumni, industry partners, and friends and supporters, is part of Cal Poly Pomona's ongoing efforts to establish itself as one of the nation's leading polytechnic universities and increase the school's profile within the medical device industry.

Patrick Stewart

Patrick Stewart, senior director of development for the College of Engineering at Cal Poly Pomona, describes the event as an outreach effort, both or alumni and for industry to learn more about the school and its programs. He says Cal Poly is looking to expand its course and degree offerings into areas that will be of interest to the medical device industry, including biomedical engineering.

“Medical device design and manufacturing is one of the areas we've identified that would be a great area of concentration and focus for the college moving forward.” He say that members of Cal Poly Pomona's leadership board have been pushing in this direction, particularly with so many device companies in Orange County, CA and the surrounding areas. Stewart says the school is actively looking to recruit faculty in these fields as well.

Under the guidance of its new dean, Mahyar Amouzegar, a former professor at Cal State Long Beach who also served on staff at the Rand Corporation for 10 years, the school is also looking to work with a number of organizations and device manufacturers including Applied Medical, a provider of products for minimally invasive surgeries, and Pendat Design Corp., an engineering firm that works with medical device manufacturers, on a number of fronts from designing concentrations to creating entire academic programs. “We're reaching out to different constituencies to find out what they think would be the best course of action for students looking to enter their particular field or industry. And how we can take existing resources and maximize or leverage those to the best or our ability to help our students and faculty,” says Stewart. The goals is for students to stay up to date on contemporary practices and gain insight into what's coming next. “We're trying to create those ties to people in those different types of organizations that will help us better understand how we can position the college to be more of a service to them and better prepare students looking to enter that field,” he adds.

While the bulk of Cal Poly Pomona's students have historically been undergraduate, one of Amouzegar's primary charges as dean has been to grow the school's graduate program to create more engagement with the device industry. Having students and faculty involved in grant and contract work is viewed as a perfect opportunity to keep them abreast of the industry. “Projects for graduate work can tackle contemporary problems with contemporary technologies. Doing this the students and faculty are insights on how their studies or their work could be of current and future benefit to organizations they may be looking to partner with. By growing the graduate program you keep you faculty current and sharp; you also expose students to problem solving issues related to the career they want to pursue,” Stewart says.

The Cal Poly Pomona event will be held Tuesday, Feb 12, from 5:00-6:30 p.m. in Room 205A in the Anaheim Convention Center as part of MD&M West.